Fire
by tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Sandor had never hated anything as much as he hated her." Sandor has learned how to survive in his world. Sansa upsets his balance.
1. Embers

He had never hated anything as much as he hated her. From their first meeting, when she cringed away from him almost before he even saw her, he loathed her. His murderous hatred for his brother paled in comparison, and he had long ago become convinced that nothing would ever eclipse that. But her fear set his rage alight, and there was nothing he hated more than fire.

He was well-trained, at least. In his darkest moments, he thought that was the only thing that separated him from his brother, and as such he clung to it with all the passion his repressed desire for salvation could offer. His obedience kept him from taking any action against her, gave him at least the appearance of calmness in his limbs if not his eyes. And it hardly mattered what his face revealed; she wasn't alone in her refusal to meet his gaze, which gave him the relief of letting his emotions have free reign there, even if the bitter cause prevented him from finding any true enjoyment.

The wine had been a mistake. It had never been anything but destructive, but his dual hatreds had been beating in his skull all day, and in a delusional moment of weakness he had hoped that perhaps this time he would be able to drink his mind out of itself. He had failed in that as in everything, only managing a temporary respite from his unceasing, unquestioning obedience for a time.

He might have stumbled back to the castle if chance had turned differently, or perhaps even tripped in the woods and drowned, too drunk to save himself. Instead the worst had happened: he had been all alone with her, just for a few moments, and his fury had blazed so high he was no longer certain who its target was.

He had tried to regain some measure of control by viciousness, spoken if not acted upon. If she had shown any fight at all, things would have been different. Perhaps his hatred would have cooled and hardened into permanence as had his feelings towards his brother. Perhaps he would have fucked her until any pretensions to goodness she had were as defiled as her body. Perhaps he would have stormed into the woods and drowned as he hoped. But she proved to be as docile and pliant as he had known she would be, taking his abuse with no resistance beyond frightened tears standing in the blue of her eyes, and her passivity latched onto something in him he hadn't known still existed. His words veered around to himself before he knew they had changed, and by the time he realized what story he was telling the awful truth was pouring out of his lips into her all-too receptive ear.

He had thought the hatred was the worst of it. He had been wrong. Her pity cut into him far worse than the anger ever had. He had run from it, he who had never run from anything but fire turned and fled the pity of a half-grown girl. But her horror, her sympathetic tears, were nothing at all compared to the next morning, when he awoke with the taste of vomit in his mouth and agony in his skull and found the rage was gone, leaving only a smouldering desire and a flicker of something worse in its place.


	2. Reality

He had expected her to fade and fail within days of her father's death. She had capitulated so rapidly to his own aggression that he was certain direct abuse would be the end of her. Her persistent survival in the face of her situation sent a flicker of respect into the shadowy corners of his mind where he hid the emotions it was better to ignore.

That illumination bought her advice, words he had not intended to say coming forth to help ease her way in what limited way he could. She didn't react to him at all, neither with the cringing fear he had expected or the thankful protestations he feared. She simply put his recommendations into action, folding under the verbal and physical abuse that he knew could not be avoided and surviving anyway with a tenacity that belied the fragility of her appearance. He had never had any pretensions to heroism, but he caught himself wishing once that he could do more for her before he cut that line of thought off sharply. There was no space in his life for heroes or ladies or wishes; obedience and revenge were all he had room for, along with the bone-deep fear that he buried beneath chill focus.

He didn't notice the precise moment when her idealism was lost. All he knew was that there was a time when her eyes had shone with the absurd conviction that there was such things as loyalty and honor and goodness, and one day he realized that her delusions had vanished. She had looked straight at him, her dull gaze fixing on his face with no particular interest but none of the horror he usually faced.

If he had had any idealism of his own left, he would have been appalled at her lack of response. As it was, he felt something that was the closest to pleasure he had felt in a very long time.


	3. Songs

He had always expected to die with his hatred cold in his mind, but when the flames came his thoughts betrayed him along with his courage. Memories of her face flickered behind his eyelids rather than visions of his brother, and when his feet took him away from the battle, they brought him to her room. He didn't recall what he had done, how he had left the battlefield; it wasn't until the dark walls of the castle were between him and the fire that he was able to process what had happened. His weapon and he were both spattered with blood, his enemies' or his allies', he had no idea which; he assumed he had simply cut through anyone in his path in his terrified flight.

Even as he regained his memories and some semblance of control, he was climbing the stair to her room. Some part of him had realized the ramifications of his flight, realized that he would have to flee the city as quickly as possible, and that same part refused to go without seeing her one more time.

He knew he should leave when he found her room empty. He had to take advantage of the distraction of the battlefield if he was to make good his flight, but he could not bring himself to leave. He stood just inside the doorway for a long moment, taking in the few furnishings, the utter lack of personality in the space. But the enclosed air carried a hint of her even if the surroundings did not, and he could not move his feet.

The wine standing on the table was tasteless in his mouth, any flavor it had overwhelmed by the smell of wildfire in the air and the sticky metallic flavor of the blood dried on his lips, but its promise of oblivion was better than the best Arbor vintage could be. He drank with focus, drank until his head was spinning where he sat, drank until he didn't care about leaving or survival and couldn't remember anymore if he was here to fuck her or to kill her. When the fog over his mind began to thicken, he slid off the chair and half-stumbled, half-crawled into the bed behind him. The sheets were silky against his scars, and he took a dark satisfaction in the bloody fingerprints he left on everything he touched.

He tried to leap to his feet when the door opened, but his body betrayed him, responding sluggishly when he tried to move. The darkness kept him hidden while he willed himself to move even as the light from the window left her in relative illumination. He still had no idea what he wanted to do, much less what he was actually going to, but he rose to his feet anyway.

She whimpered something unintelligible as she turned towards him, and then his fingers shut tight around the delicate bones of her wrist and his bloodstained hand pressed over her mouth to stifle her scream.

"Little bird," he grated. "I knew you'd come." The ends of her hair brushed his wrist. Her lips were moist again his palm, her eyes wide and more terrified than he had ever seen.

"If you scream I'll kill you. Believe that." His words were soft, a promise instead of a threat, and they felt like a pledge of love on his tongue.

If she had shouted he would have broken her neck. He had thought of killing her when she came in, but the feel of her skin against his bloody hands stopped him, and she didn't scream, just listened to him with her frightened blue eyes and echoed back his words. He didn't know what he was saying, and from her expression she wasn't following much of it either, but the sound of her voice decided him on a course of action.

"You promised me a song, little bird. Have you forgotten?"

"I can't," she whimpered, and he nearly slapped her. "You're scaring me."

"Everything scares you," he hissed. "Look at me. *Look* at me."

She stared into his face, too frightened and too passive to do anything but obey. Her lips trembled, the promise of tears shining in her eyes, but she looked straight at him deliberately for the first time and something in him twisted painfully under her gaze. He was speaking then, words coming from a tightness in his chest that he hadn't even known was there, promises and possibilities coming to his lips with no chance for him to call them back. He pulled her towards him, the heat of his hatred flaring into something else as her body pressed against his.

She cringed back, closing her eyes against his closeness, and it was gone, all the possibilities and the burn of desire and the giddiness that had filled him a moment before, leaving a barren coldness in their place. He had never been so disappointed by the cold before.

"Still can't bear to look, can you?"

He pushed her away, shoving her onto the bed and pulling his dagger to press against her throat. He felt like ice.

"I'll have that song." His voice sounded utterly flat in his ears, the painful fire utterly extinguished. "Sing, little bird."

The dagger was so close. He pressed harder, considering slitting her throat and letting her blood mix with that of the men already covering him. But the thought brought no pleasure, and then she began to sing.

He knew the song, had heard it sung often, but the words seemed to leap into his mind with a force they had never had before. Of all the songs to choose from, he had not expected her to sing of protection, of peace and hope. He had not expected her to pray for him. The rush of emotion was stunning, blinding him with sudden tears and weakening his grasp until he nearly dropped the dagger he held.

He couldn't move for a moment after she stopped, just tried to breathe through the agonizing flood of feeling she had caused. Then he pulled his dagger back and resheathed it, his hands shaking so badly he could barely manage it.

The touch of her hand on his face froze him where he was. Her fingers were as soft as the rest of her, resting for a moment against his scarred cheek. He shut his eyes in the darkness, the contact of her skin too much for him to process.

"Little bird," he managed, the tears in his throat pulling the words to pieces. And then he pulled away from her, standing up and retreating from her as quickly as he could force himself to move, ripping off his cloak and letting it fall to the ground before fleeing from her, from the room, from the city.


End file.
